CRAIG HUGHES ON POLITICS AND POWER :
THE nation’s faith in the fairness of the vaccine rollout has been shaken. We put our trust in the Government and the HSE’s promise that ‘supply’ would be the only issue affecting the most vulnerable in our society being vaccinated.
There was collective frustration as events outside the Government’s control were reported, and promised supply agreements were not reached.
Yet there was an acceptance that nothing more could be done when we heard of delays in the production of vaccines in pharmaceutical plants in little known parts of mainland Europe.
This frustration turned to collective anger with the realisation that vaccinations were being arranged for the elite and that queue-jumping was rampant.
Last week, this newspaper exclusively revealed that 20 teachers and staff from St Gerard’s School in Bray, Co. Wicklow, were vaccinated at the Beacon Hospital, some 13km away.
It was the first glimpse of how our vaccination system was lacking the robustness we should expect. The CEO of the Beacon, Michael Cullen’s children attend the school, which has reported annual fees of €7,420, and he personally picked up the phone to offer the ‘excess doses’.
The doses, they say, were left over after a day of vaccinating frontline healthcare workers.
Mr Cullen didn’t call anyone else to offer the vaccine.
THE hospital did not follow the strict HSE protocols that state that a standby list of those next in line clinically, and who can make it to the vaccination centre at short notice, should be in place.
The story sparked an explosion of anger, aired across broadcast and print media, often from those who had vulnerable loved ones patiently waiting their turn.
For many, the pandemic has meant prolonged periods of isolation; those with already shorter life expectancies were asked to cocoon.
The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel for them and they have been cheated out of getting it as soon as they could have.
The St Gerard’s School report was the first of six exclusive stories in the Mail over the last eight days, which have begun to unravel major failings in the vaccination rollout programme.
The revelations have rattled public confidence in the Government’s handling of the vaccine rollout and raised serious questions about its fairness and transparency.
The CEO of The Park Academy crèche chain Mary McGivney and 35 of her staff, an unspecified amount of whom are office workers, were also vaccinated over two days at the Beacon.
Again, this was with so-called ‘excess doses’. The CEO of the VHI, John O’Dwyer, was also revealed by this newspaper to have been given the jab at the Beacon. Neither Mr O’Dwyer or the VHI have offered an explanation as to how the vaccination was arranged.
Within hours of this newspaper breaking the story, Mr O’Dwyer stood aside while an internal investigation is conducted.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is ultimately responsible for the vaccine rollout. The day after the first story broke about the Beacon, he suspended the rollout of the vaccine at the privately-owned hospital.
While some in Government lauded Mr Donnelly for swift and decisive action in relation to the Beacon, this newspaper yesterday illustrated a major failing by the same minister.
A link to the online booking system used for scheduling frontline healthcare workers was widely shared online and on social messaging apps.
The Mail revealed the widespread abuse in the system, with people falsely posing as healthcare workers who were able to get jabs without their work status being questioned.
The HSE doesn’t know the occupation of one in four ‘frontline healthcare workers’ who have received the jab.
Mr Donnelly was contacted by the senior Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan after a concerned constituent of his had seen the link being shared online.
The constituent said that the link had been shared on the Reddit Ireland page, which has 370,000 members, with instructions on how to cheat the system and make a false vaccination appointment.
The minister did not move swiftly to have the portal closed.
Instead, he merely forwarded the email to the HSE’s Parliamentary Affairs division. It would be ten days before the link that was widely used for queue-jumping was taken offline.
This failing has Mr Donnelly’s Cabinet colleagues sensing danger for the embattled minister.
In normal times this would be a fatal blow, but there is no desire for the Government to lose its third minister and threaten a general election.
No one in the Opposition would want that, let alone Mr Donnelly’s stuttering Fianna Fáil party, who were at 11% in the most recent poll. Since this newspaper reported on the abuse of the HSE’s booking system their position has changed.
WHEN our sister paper the Irish Mail on Sunday first revealed that they were able to make a booking through the portal using false information, the HSE said that proof that someone is a bone fide healthcare worker is required before getting the jab.
It was only after we reported the whistleblower revelations that the system was being abused did HSE chief Paul Reid admit that queue jumping through the portal had occurred, but he said it was ‘marginal’. Mr Reid did not say how many people ‘marginal’ equates to. There is a strong chance he does not know either.
Latest figures show that 235,000 ‘frontline healthcare workers’ have received the first dose of the vaccine. The HSE employs 80,000 workers in this category. They don’t know how many workers in the private sector should be legitimately classed as frontline healthcare workers.
Crucially, this figure is not the final figure. Dr Colm Henry noted, in response to this newspaper, that it ‘seems high’ and that some healthcare workers were yet to be vaccinated.
The HSE said they relied on an element of ‘good faith’ in the online booking system.
Their good faith was misguided, and while some who skipped the queue will feel vaccine regret, they should not have been afforded the opportunity to so easily jump it.
Since breaking the first story, dozens of concerned readers have contacted us with details of the system being abused and systemic queue-jumping.
This newspaper will continue to vigorously pursue abuses within the vaccine rollout.